Tuesday 21st May 2013

Hi everyone,

Now im sure most of you know by now, but for those of you that don't we have some news.

We have decided to head back to Bristol after our holiday in Las Vegas.

We have been thinking about it for the last couple of months and we absolutely love Wellington and have made some really good friends, we just miss our family and friends back home a lot. So once our Expression of Interest got accepted and we got invited to apply for residency, we sat down and had a big talk and we both decided that we wouldn't want to start a family over here as it's just too far away from the UK. In case anyone is wondering, I am not pregnant!

So we are going to head back to the UK and settle down for good. Well im sure we will still keep having lots of holidays, but the UK will be our home for the foreseeable future. So we have both handed in our notice at work and finish on May 31st. Our plan is to spend that bank holiday weekend in Welly, doing lots of tourist things and seeing all of our friends before we go. Then on the Tuesday we fly to Christchurch and have 10 days on the South Island to do some exploring. So excited about this as we absolutely loved the South Island last time and I cannot wait to go back.

Matt being the bargain genius that he is, remembered that we had a $450 credit note with Wicked campers from 4 years ago because we took our campervan back early. So unbelievably they have honoured our 4 year old credit note and given us a van with full insurance for 10 days for absolutely nothing, in fact they still owe us some money I think. Brilliant. We aren't planning on sleeping in the van much, as it's now getting into Winter and it is going to be very chilly. So we will be paying a visit to Darrell in Queenstown for a couple of nights, Debs in Dunedin and Jon in Christchurch. Will be great to see some people from back home and have a good catch up, also saves us getting frost bite.

We haven't got too much planned on the south island, except Milford Sound which we definitely want to do again as we had really bad weather last time and we want to spend a night two by Lake Tekapo and Wanaka as they are just stunning. No crazy bungy jumping or sky diving this time though, so don't fret parents.

On the 14th of June we fly back to Welly for one final night before we catch our flights to Las Vegas for 6 nights where we are meeting up with Olie & Paola and lots of their friends. So we will be flying back to Bristol on the 22nd of June via Frankfurt.

Our first priority will be catching up with family and friends, which are really looking forward to. We then want to take a month or so off to potentially do a coach tour or Europe and maybe some camping around the UK before we get ourselves jobs and settle down.

So not long left in New Zealand, it is such an amazing country and we are really going to miss it, just wish we could move it a lot closer to the UK or we could move all you lot out here. Fingers crossed we win the Euro Millions one day, eh!

See you all super soon, we really can't wait! Lots of Love Carly & Matt x x x